--> Crustal Framework Control of the Pre-salt, Santos and Campos Basins, Brazil

2020 AAPG Hedberg Conference:
Geology and Hydrocarbon Potential of the Circum-Gulf of Mexico Pre-salt Section

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Crustal Framework Control of the Pre-salt, Santos and Campos Basins, Brazil

Abstract

The Pre-Salt of the Santos and Campos basins is a remarkable world class petroleum province. Twenty-five Pre-Salt accumulations hold proved reserves and contingent resources in the order of 40 Gboe. Discovered in 2006, its first production started in 2009. Ten years in a row and cumulative production surpassed 3.0 Gboe in October 2019. By then, production was on the order of 2.6 MMboepd. All this production came from 114 wells, of which 42 produced over 20,000 bopd. The producing 19 fields are systematically located on top of a major crustal structural feature, whose surficial expression is the External High. The complete understanding of the functioning of a world class petroleum system, in this case the Pre-Salt of the Santos and Campos Basin, can only be achieved when a complete analysis of the basins and their basements, that is, the continental crust underneath, is performed. When the crustal domains underlying the basins are mapped and related to the hydrocarbon kitchens, to the focusing structural highs and to the different prevailing thermal regimes during the rifting stages, it becomes possible to understand the distribution of discovered accumulations and to predict the occurrence of new ones. It also becomes clear the fundamental role that structural inheritance of different older terrains within the basement had upon the development of the different components of the petroleum system.